THE GOVERNMENT "just doesn't get" the anger surrounding gay to straight conversion therapies, a Labour MP said today as she derided its response to calls for an investigation into NHS links to the controversial practice.

Diana Johnson, Labour’s Shadow Home Office Minister for Crime and Security, wants the NHS only to use therapists who are signed up to professional bodies opposed to 'conversion' therapies.

The MP for Hull North was one of 15 MPs who sent a letter to Health Minister Norman Lamb asking him to investigate potential NHS links with conversion therapists.

They also want the Government to explore the regulation of counselling and psychotherapy, to look into banning conversion therapy for under-18s, and to properly train mental professionals in LGBT-friendly forms of mental health provision.

The Government said today it opposes conversion therapies, but it only committed to explore ways to make sure public money is not used to fund the practice.

Ms Johnson said: "The Government just doesn't get it. This is not just an issue of wasting taxpayers’ money to fund discredited conversion therapists through the NHS.

"The broader problem is that many doctors and therapists haven't received the proper training on what to do if a gay person approaches them about their sexuality, and may end up informally referring them to people who will try to ‘change’ their sexuality.

"Dealing with this means measures such as training doctors and therapists properly and ensuring that the NHS only commissions therapists who are part of good professional bodies that have nothing to do with conversion therapy.

"Yet the Minister completely ignores these issues in his statement."

The letter was sent just days after the first gay weddings took place in the UK [GETTY]

Ms Johnson sent Freedom of Information requests to 212 local public health bodies - known as Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCG) - in England and Wales, asking if they could guarantee they only used therapists who were accredited by anti-conversion professional bodies, such as the British Association of Counsellors and Psychotherapists (BACP).

Ms Johnson's letter to Mr Lamb was sent this week, and among the 15 signatories were Tory MPs Crispin Blunt and Sir Peter Bottomley, and Lib Dem Stephen Gilbert.

Last November, Mr Lamb told a Westminster Hall debate in the House of Commons he found gay conversion therapy "wholly abhorrent" but the Government had no plans to ban it.

He said: "It is completely inappropriate for any GP to be referring a patient for this sort of therapy.

"The Government are not aware the NHS commissions this type of therapy."

He added: "The Government believe state regulation will not be appropriate, as the cost of registration for therapists and for the taxpayer could not be justified."

A Department of Health spokesperson said today: “NHS funded therapies are provided for those who need them to help them manage a psychological problem.

"This could include people coming to terms with their sexuality. This is absolutely not the same as gay-to-straight “conversion” therapy, which we strongly oppose.

"Being gay is not an illness and it should never be treated as something which is curable, which is why we are proactively exploring ways of ensuring that 'conversion' therapy can never be funded by public money.”